This Just In: Kanye West Still an Asshole

Kanye West is mad as hell, and he's not gonna take it anymore!

Borrowing a page from Axl Rose's Book of Self-Righteous Self-Absorbtion, Kanye is taking umbrage at criticism thrown at him stemming from his performance at Bonnaroo, for which he showed up nearly two hours late.

Without even getting into the sheer ridunkulousness of Kanye West being scheduled after Pearl Jam, the whiny rapper claims that his tardiness is the fault of festival organizers, who couldn't load his stage quickly enough after taking down PJ's set. There also seemed to be an inference that maybe it was partially Pearl Jam's fault, because they played for an hour longer than scheduled. (Note: It's not their fault that they're awesome and the fans can't stand to see them go.)

Let's do the math here. According to festival spokesman Ken Weinstein, Pearl Jam's June 15^th set ended at 1:15 am. Kanye's set was scheduled for 2:45 am. He didn't take the stage until 4:25 am. Now, I've been to a lot of concerts in my day, and sometimes the intermission between acts seems like it takes forever. But I have never heard of it taking 3 hours and 10 minutes to set up a stage. That's longer than most concerts last! Also, I've seen Pearl Jam five times. Their set is not that complicated. So, something is definitely fishy with all of that.

Kanye's claim is that the festival organizers are "idiots who didn't really have the capacity to really put on this show properly." Apparently, "this show" is set up as a glow-in-the-dark, sci-fi concept piece, featuring a spaceship and a "Jane screen," whose femme-bot voice speaks to Kanye. Hmm, sounds a lot like Plankton's wife, Karen, on Spongebob Squarepants.

Defending the festival, Weinstein issued the statement that,"Our world-class event production team strives to accommodate the needs of every performer." What he didn't say, but really wished he could was, "But, y'know, Bonnaroo is generally played by artists who actually care about the quality of their MUSIC. And it's generally attended by fans of said MUSIC. Maybe if this jerkoff stopped thinking about himself for a damn second and realized that he was a small part of a large, renowned festival that features many other artists, he might, just for one night, forego staging a giant production for a bunch of tired, sweaty, drunk people who really don't give a shit about all the bells and whistles, and just come out onstage and fricking perform already, like he's getting paid to do."

Pissed off festival-goers greeted Kanye's arrival with chants of "Kanye sucks," some booing and airborne beer bottles, and fellow festival performer Robert Randolph later criticized Kanye onstage for disappointing his fans. Because of all this, and since no one at Bonnaroo stood up for him, Kanye wrote the following on his website: "This Bonnaroo thing is the worst insult I've ever had in my life. This is the most offended I've ever been ... this is the maddest I ever will be."

Kanye, I thought what didn't kill you just made you stronger? Why dwell?

And, really, this is the most offended you've ever been? Seriously? Even more than when Bush said that he didn't care about black people? (Well, he never said that, but he really didn't need to.) Or all those times you didn't win a Grammy because someone better than you did? Or that day you tried to go through the express line at the grocery store, but that disrespectful bitch of a cashier told you that you had, like, 33 items and expected you to move to another line? Or that time that dude cut you off in traffic, and then he had the nerve to call 911 when you ran him off the road and started beating his car with a tire iron? Come on, something had to have been worse than this.

And this is not the maddest you will ever be. Don't underestimate the number of people out there unwilling to kiss your ass and give you whatever you want. Your days of complaining aren't over by a long shot. Have faith.